Ask a Yoetzet
Golda Koschitzky Hotline
Two Yoatzot Halacha, graduates of Nishmat’s Keren Ariel Yoatzot Fellows Program in Jerusalem, gave a series of presentations at Yeshiva University’s Championsgate conference this summer. Yoetzet Halacha Rachelle Sprecher Fraenkel, Nishmat Dean of Students, delivered the keynote address, highlighting the way community unites during crisis, as it did when her son, Naftali, h”yd, was kidnapped and missing for three weeks, two years ago, and posing the question of how we integrate this expression of our better nature into our everyday lives.
Synergy of modern orthodox institutions was apparent when YU Professor Nechama Price, Director of Graduate Program for Advanced Torah Study (GPATS) at Stern College, described her experience as a Yoetzet Halacha for five New Jersey communities. In five years, she has already responded to 3,000 questions from women! Shortly after Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, then President of YU, addressed the first commencement of Nishmat’s Yoatzot Halacha in Jerusalem (18 years ago), he established GPATS at Stern. Today, most of the Fellows studying for certification as Yoatzot in the U.S. at Nishmat’s Miriam Glaubach Center are GPATS alumnae.
“We are strong supporters of the Yoatzot Halacha and the Nishmat program,” Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, University Professor of Jewish History & Thought and Senior Scholar at YU Center for the Jewish Future, reiterated at the conference. Rabbi Schacter will offer a three-hour seminar to Yoatzot Halacha this summer, at the annual Continuing Education and Professional Development Program at Nishmat’s Miriam Glaubach Center. He delivered several talks at Nishmat in December and served, with his wife, Yocheved, on the Nishmat 26th Anniversary Dinner Committee honoring Yoetzet Halacha Shoshana Samuels (Teaneck and Los Angeles).
During his talk about the imperative of making meaningful choices, Rabbi Schacter poignantly cited the example of Nishmat Founder and Dean, Rabbanit Chana Henkin, who spoke at Nishmat’s Dinner of choosing to make aliya with Rav Yehuda Henkin, as a young couple. “We knew that we might have to sacrifice, but we never imagined making two sacrifices (losing both son and daughter-in-law to terror),” he quoted her as saying. Yet, Rabbanit Henkin remains steadfast in her vision and her faith, the paradigm for the imperative to define individual and communal overarching values. Rabbi Schacter’s own overarching values? “I am in this world to take what I got from my parents and grandparents and give this over to my children and grandchildren,” he said .
